TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A former US Senate candidate said Washington and Tel Aviv have drawn up a new game plan to destabilize Iran via “draconian sanctions” and “black intelligence operations”, stressing that this is the plan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s operatives in the US government.

“As for Mr. Trump, his national security team and foreign policy advisors are riddled with Zionist interventionists, of whom Nikki Haley is arguably the most blatant and obvious. The game plan is this: Attempt to destabilize the Iranian government with draconian economic sanctions and black intelligence operations there. If that fails, utilize a false flag operation to falsely pin something on Iran that would sell the general public in the United States and the West with an overt military operation against Tehran. This is the Netanyahu plan. This is the plan of his operatives in the American government,” Mark Dankof, who is also a broadcaster and pastor in San Antonio, Texas, told the Tasnim news agency.

Mark Dankof is a broadcaster for The Ugly Truth Podcast. Born in Wiesbaden, Germany, the son of a United States Air Force Colonel, he graduated from Valparaiso University in 1977 and from Chicago's Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1983. In recent years, he has pursued post-graduate work in systematic theology and theological German at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Formerly the 36th District Chairman of the Republican Party in King County/Seattle and later an elected delegate to Texas State Republican Conventions in 1994 and 1996, he entered the United States Senate race in Delaware in 2000 as the nominated candidate of the Constitution Party against Democratic candidate Thomas Carper and Republican incumbent William Roth.

Following is the full text of the interview:

Tasnim: In recent weeks, peaceful protests over rising prices and economic problems broke out in some Iranian cities, but the unauthorized gatherings turned violent after a number of opportunists, some of them armed, vandalized public property and launched attacks on police stations and government buildings. Siding with the rioters, a number of US officials, including Trump and US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, did their best to hype up the unrest. Do you see any connection between the rioters and US continued support for them as Iran says it has hard evidence that the riots were directed from abroad? Kindly explain.

Dankof: Paul Craig Roberts is absolutely correct. It is obvious that the unrest in Iran is being exploited and exacerbated by elements who desire the overt overthrow of the Iranian government and its replacement with something that would do the bidding of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. The distant past gives us the roadmap for understanding the present, namely the 1953 coup d'etat sponsored by the United States CIA and the British MI6 in Iran. Stephen Kinzer's book, All the Shah's Men, or the papers released by the CIA because of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), demonstrate this history and its implications. One of the tools being used by the United States and Israel in these ongoing efforts is the MEK. As for Mr. Trump, his national security team and foreign policy advisors are riddled with Zionist interventionists, of whom Nikki Haley is arguably the most blatant and obvious. The game plan is this: Attempt to destabilize the Iranian government with draconian economic sanctions and black intelligence operations there. If that fails, utilize a false flag operation to falsely pin something on Iran that would sell the general public in the United States and the West with an overt military operation against Tehran. This is the Netanyahu plan. This is the plan of his operatives in the American government.

Tasnim: On Tuesday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei said a “triangle” of enemies -- with the United States and Israel comprising one of its sides, a rich Persian Gulf littoral state on its second side and the anti-Iran MKO terror organization on the third side -- has been plotting for the past few months to foment chaos and violence in Iran. What is your take on this?

Dankof: The evidence of the fingerprints of the United States, Israel, Saudi, and the MEK/MKO is everywhere in this situation. Several examples will give your readers the picture. First, even Newsweek Magazine has all but conceded that the United States and Israel utilized the MEK/MKO in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in Tehran. Secondly, the support of the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia for the wide range of Wahhabi extremists and terrorists used to attempt the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, in what would achieve the end of the "Shia Crescent" extending from Iran to Syria to Lebanon, is provable. The international community knows this very well. So do Paul Craig Roberts, Philip Giraldi, Pat Buchanan, David Stockman, and a whole host of honest American analysts. These various actions go back to the Oded Yinon Plan for the Middle East in 1982, and the roadmap of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) in its Clean Break Strategy document in 1996, well before the 9-11 incident in the United States. If we go back even further, the American foreign policy strategy since World War II has been to assume the previous position of Britain in the region, which was and is based on the Zionist Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Treaty. Regime change by coup d'etat, economic strangulation, land theft, and military interventionism has been the means of implementation ever since.

The present exacerbation of internal Iranian domestic political configurations by the Americans, the Israelis, the Saudis, and their MKO/MEK surrogates is best grasped and comprehended in this wider historical landscape.

Tasnim: The Leader further said that the cash for the unrest came from “one of the filthy rich Persian Gulf littoral states. Obviously, such projects need money, but the Americans won't be willing to spend anything” as long as they have these rich allies”. What do you think?

Dankof: The United States clearly is happy with having their Saudi Petrodollar Allies picking up the tab for these nefarious actions in Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and Iran. Why? The United States is closing in on a national debt of $21 trillion, even as it has recently approved an obscene $800 billion in defense expenditures for the next year to sustain these Middle Eastern interventions, the buildup of NATO forces on the borders of Mr. Putin's Russia, and the attempts to renew and solidify the American Empire's position vis a vis China in Southeast Asia, North Korea, and the South China Sea. Paul Craig Roberts once observed that Empires become decadent, and overextended. The United States is awash with internal decadence, political unrest, declining infrastructure, national and consumer debt of staggering totals, even as it seeks to sustain an American military presence in 130 countries around the world. Mr. Roberts puts it well: "Empires run out of money and manpower." He is on target. It happened to the British Empire and the old Soviet Empire. The American Empire will experience the biggest pratfall of them all. Iran may well be the breaking point, especially if Putin and the Chinese step in in ways not anticipated by the Zionist Neo-Conservatives whose miscalculations have become Legion since 2001.

Tasnim: Ayatollah Khamenei also noted that the US is angry with the Iranian nation, establishment and the Islamic Revolution due to the blows it has taken from this great movement. Why is the US after the collapse of the Islamic Establishment?

Dankof: The nefarious doctrine of American Exceptionalism explains these ill-fated policies toward Iran, Russia, Syria, and a host of others. It is based on the notion that the United States and the American Empire are the exception to the rules that have governed other Empires throughout history. The rise and fall of Ancient Israel and Judah, along with the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, the Greeks, and the Ancient Roman Empire, along with the already mentioned modern examples of the British and Soviet Empires, show the axioms that govern the rise and fall of these entities throughout history. The American Exceptionalism doctrine which permeates the thinking of the government of the United States, its media, its military, and much of its ignorant populus, is either unaware of this rich historical past and the principles it teaches, or truly believes it is, as its name suggests, The Exception to the Rule. As has been observed time and time again, arrogance and self-awareness seldom go hand in hand.

Frankly, I have given up on the people of the United States and its corrupted institutions. It seems that only a totally avoidable global catastrophe will teach the people of my country that we are not the Great Exception to the Rules for Empires in History, but a grim example of the timeless truths of these Rules. King Belshazzar didn't understand what Daniel revealed to him about his own demise and that of the Babylonian Empire in history [Daniel 7]. The end came upon him, and his reign like a flood. I believe this is the sad and tragic destiny of the American Empire as well. It has more than asked for the consequences coming.